Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday June 30, 2006 @06:29PM
from the i-can-see-you-again dept.

antikarma writes "NASA engineers successfully activated the Advanced Camera for Surveys at 9:12 a.m. EDT Friday aboard the agency's Hubble Space Telescope. Checkout was completed at 10:20 a.m. EDT with science observations scheduled to resume Sunday, July 2. 'This is the best possible news,' said Ed Ruitberg, deputy associate director for the Astrophysics Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 'We were confident we could work through the camera issue, and now we can get back to doing more incredible science with the camera.'"

Due to Iraq and George Bush , most people in Western Europe have a little distain for the American Government. In fact, where I live, people often break in to an American accent when they do something stupid. I imagine this is because everyone sees Channel 4 news where we see the "Answers from Genesis museum" and thinks: "Only the stupid could indulge such nonsense."

With that necessary rant taken well and truly aside, I want to thank American for doing what no-one else can afford to do: put real science equipment in to space. It's your taxes that pay for the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a project that has furthered science in a very unique way. It is project that Galileo would have dreamed of. It is a marvel, a temple,even, to science.....

With all the gratitude in my heart, I still feel America confuses me. To paraphrase the film Contact: "It is capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares." It is a land of contradiction; of promise and of despair. It is of science,and religion, of the smart and the idiot. It's is so huge that it contradicts and astounds. It is the country where opposites can be equally true.

As a British man, I love America and I hope the feeling is mutual. I raise this glass to the future of Science and hope you will raise your glass too! To Science!

Gee, so we are complicated;-) There are still people that think the English are evil because of their conquest of the globe.
Anyway, back to the article. I would encourage everyone to check out this month's issue of Scientific American. It has some outstanding photos from Hubble.

NASA is ESA's partner for the HST. ESA has a nominal 15% stake in the mission and has, among other things, provided the Faint Object Camera, the first two solar panels that powered the spacecraft and a team of space scientists and engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, United States.
Astronomers employed by ESA and the European Southern Observatory at the Space Telescope-European Coordinating Facility work with various aspects of HST in Munich, Germany, including the calibration of HST's instruments and public outreach. Europe's contribution to HST entitles European astronomers to 15% of the telescope's observing time.

Check out http://www.spacetelescope.org/ [spacetelescope.org] to see some of what the ESA does. They have lots of images from the Hubble and other cool stuff on their site (although I have to admit I am kind of prejudiced about the ESA as I do some side work on image processing for them).

not to make you think that i support the war in iraq and all the "iraqi oil" we've gained (and also not to be a troll), but it's most definately american people who put the satellite there. the US has lost an absurd amount of money into the war in iraq and has gotten nothing out of it. if we were getting a plethora of oil from iraq, do you really think that we'd be paying $3 a gallon when before the war it was in the mid $1 range?
But to the topic at hand.
I know that hubble has a great impact on what peopl

$3.00 per gallon? lets see.. even if you ship me the stuff by (large enough) air mail it should be still cheaper than here around..we ware more like $8.00 per gallon here in Germany now..and it's rising..

I really should'nt surf slashdot anymore.. those gas prices (and people even complaining over THAT) make me cry;)

actually a very good question - thanks for asking.
the retailers are the very "small guys" in this picture..most of em make at max ~5-8 cent per gallon because price pressure is so high.
taxes are estimated to be 76cent per dollar (or to be more precise, 76eurocent per euro), so the biggest deal are taxes, not retailers or oil manufacturers, that's right.
The only point in showing the high prices here in germany (or well say in all of europe.. the price level is almost average in europe) is that americans

Well, it sums up as followed: most of the tax we pay is called "Ökosteuer".. ecology-tax. since gas is so expensive, people drive less, use more public transport, buy cars with less thirst for gas etc.

Or, you could be involved in trying to fix it. Hate to break this to you, but this country has been in worse shape before. Do a google search on the history of this country in the decades after the civil war. Some of the things that went on make today look like a paradise. One state returned multiple sets of electoral college votes. House of Representatives choosing a president in return for agreements to remove troops from Southern states. voting shenanigans that make Deibold look honest.

Yet, this country pulled out of it. We have a system that allows good men to fix their country. As we see today, the Supreme Court acts as a break on a President who runs out of control, or a Congress. We have checks and balances and free speech.

Those tools pulled us out of a deeper bit only 150 years ago. A blip in the history of civilization. We can do the same today. Or we can just bitch and moan and throw up our hands.

What you say rings true. However, my own interpretation of American history suggests that things will get worse before they get better. The concerned among us are still far too small a percentage of the population to draw the attention of the complacent masses. I mean, look at the issues that incumbents are banking on to get re-elected: Terrorism, Gay Marriage, and Flag Burning. Real issues, such as climate change, health care, and corruption go undiscussed because powerful interests pay an awful lot of money to keep it that way.

No, things will have to get pretty bad before we realize that Jesus isn't coming to fix it for us.

Sorry but you're talking overly optimistic nonesense.Times have changed. When your country pulled out of its earlier problems, the technology to spy on individuals and extinguish any dissent was very primitive compared to what exists today. Yes technology puts much more power in the hands of the individual but unfortunately the same rings truer of government.

Secondly what suggestion do you have for a non-US citizen to fix your country. We can't vote and its not our place to say how it's run except for the u

Sorry but you're talking overly optimistic nonesense.Times have changed. When your country pulled out of its earlier problems, the technology to spy on individuals and extinguish any dissent was very primitive compared to what exists today. Yes technology puts much more power in the hands of the individual but unfortunately the same rings truer of government.

Yup. And I have access to much greater technology than did my great grandparents. I can keep up with how my congressman vote as it happens. 150 years a

Look at the vast geography and the disparity between different groups of people here. You're more likely to understand the USA if you don't consider it in the same light as a single European country -- most of which are the size of one of our states.

In a day, I can travel by car across most of western Europe, through vastly different populations and beliefs. Here, it can take me that long to traverse Texas. Driving 24 hours on, 8 hours off, it took me 3 and half days to drive from Phoenix to Boston. Where would that take you in Europe?

Where I live in Maine, I find great similarities to the Bavarian countryside. You surely couldn't say that about the desert southwest in the USA.

A certain Austrian, having been elected leader of Germany some years back assumed that our differences would prevent us ever even agreeing with each other enough to be a serious player on the world scene -- let alone threaten his plans for world domination. That was as big a mistake as his election in the first place.

Our states and our divergent people are like a big Italian family. There are always some who don't speak to others, big traumatic fights, and long held grudges -- but when faced with a threat from outside, nearly instant, unified, reactionary, over response is close at hand to deal with that threat.

HA! I knew it. I keep asking and people keep telling me that most of us don't have an accent to outside people. I couldn't understand how it could be possible that Welshmen sound so funny to us but we don't to them. Then again, Welshman probably sound funny to everybody, and a Texas accent and an American accent aren't the same thing.

Yes the feeling is mutual. If I may comment, however, I think the expectations for America are really high, partially because of our own pride, partially because of a blesse

The War of 1812 was a war between now-Canada and the United States. Officially, the war ended a stalemate. The British colonies had in fact launched successful attacks against US soil, having burned the White House and treasury to the ground. They had also taken Detroit, though it was retaken before war's end. The Americans also caused a great amount of damage, but again, it all ended in stalemate.All offensive action into Canada taken by the United States was successfully repelled, and so, too, was all ret

Science is an extremely necessary step to the evolution of mankind. As a species, we are curious in nature, and we are always striving to understand more and more about our environment; And believe it or not, the universe is our environment.Instead of scrapping these projects, why not cut the US defense budget? At an excess of $419.3 billion for 2006, I'm sure even if only $20 billion (~10 B-2's or a few ICBM's) was shaved off that, a lot of the problems you describe could be taken care of. NASA's current b

I guess every/. thread is about bashing America, no matter what the source article is.As a Texan who had the happiness of owning a home in England for three years, I'd have to say I love the UK but it often disappoints.

The biggest difference between Americans and Brits is the sheep-like willingness of the average Brit to give up a lot of liberty for a little security. England really is a nation of girlie men. That's fine, but then they turn around and and join American moonbats in the ridiculous Bush-Hit

Besides space science, the American taxpayer has paid dearly to protect your sorry asses from totalitarianism at least twice. Most people in Western Europe would be speaking either German or Russian if not for the American government and the American people.

Let me be among the first to exclaim "Yay!" Like, totally forsooth and verily!

I was just in the biggest funk about this and not just because the DVD on the new Sky and Telescope
reminded me of what we'd be missing. I know there's all sorts of swell and really keen new
stuff on the way, but I've just got so used to going to bed at night, snug and secure in the knowledge that the big
guy was still up there looking for spiffy cosmic phenomena.

Whenever I think of the galaxies, outer space or human observation to these I cannot help the feeling of awe and admiration. I checked out the pictures on the web-site and I felt like I was watching Kubrick`s Oddysey. I imagine and see ( thanks to 10 times more powerful Hubble`s objectives ) the vast galaxies, millions of stars and the light reflected from them and converted to miliwatts of electrical energy in the human brain. I see the real physics out there, intersecting its ways with philosphy. That is really something different from what they do in solid state, or applied physics.

Hubble and its even more powerful descendants will enlighten the secrets of universe,....and before I get even more theological , let me get out of here

I wish there was a faster way to cook baked potatoes in a conventional oven. I don't have a microwave, but I like baked potatoes, and they take too long to make. Sometimes I throw one in the oven, even if I don't want one. By the time it's done, who knows? I throw one in and go on vacation.

Looking back what would have been cheaper? To launch a new better one that don't need costly repairs? Or to keep repairing one that was out of date before it actually worked? Hmm, Where's the math whizz when you need him?

Ummmm, lets see. First, each service mission costs about 100 million dollars. The Hubble cost between 2 and 3 Billion dollars. It was designed to be serviced and maintained for over 20 years. To build something which wouldn't need servicing for 20 years would probably triple or quintuple the costs.
Before you speak (or write), think about what you are about to say or speak. You would look less foolish that way.

If you take a rough midpoint and say $500 million per maintenance, the break even point would be three missions. Now, a huge portion of a satellite's cost is the R&D just to design the thing. If you produce multiple ones, the cost drops substantially. Produce multiple hubbles and soon they'd cost under a billion each. Meanwhile you can still do a great deal of updating on the ground.

I'll admit that I'd prefer to scrap the shuttle entirely, replacing it with boosters, dedicated personal carriers, and source maintenance missions from a space station. This would hopefully drastically reduce the cost of maintaining it, and might change the equations again.

Looking back what would have been cheaper? To launch a new better one that don't need costly repairs? Or to keep repairing one that was out of date before it actually worked? Hmm, Where's the math whizz when you need him?

The problem is - it's not a straigtforward black and white accounting problem. There's a fair bit of psychology and politics in there as well.

It's easier to get money for a project already in progress, especially one showing results and with a high level of public popularity. I

I found that the total cost for Hubble from conception to present, is about 4.5 billion. The new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov] (Hubble's replacement) has a estimated cost of 4.5 billion.

How about a little injection from the Buffet crew. It would appear that with a tenth of the donation, we could have a couple new and upgraded Hubbles watching the sky. Heck, just about any one of hundreds of companies could give us some. Sure fixing AIDS and having a T-shirt is important considering we have had these luxuries for some time and want the world to stay alive, but what about those of us who are responsible and provide the backbone. Our entertainment surely isn't earthly given the realities. Whe

So that's what we're calling it these days. In reality, they flew someone up there to whack the thingamaflotchit on the side a few times, twist the rabbit-ears to a different position, and if all else failed, a swift kick to the side of the cabinet. All of the above were accompanied by a steady stream of verbal abuse and profanity, followed by pleas of "pretty please, damn you, you piece of..." If there is another way that anything has ever gotten fixed, I am unaware of it. But I guess NASA is facing a budget crisis like everyone else (except Haliburton, natch) so they have to tell us that they "activated" it, via high-tech, very smart methodology and stuff. Thanks for the info, rocket guys. Gotcha. What a bunch of dweebs.

I wish they would find a better and easier way to service Hubble.Even though it got off to a rough start, it's been one of the best things NASA ever put into space.Sure, it will be superceded in the future with something better but even so, it's a magnificent tool andshould be kept in service as long as physically possible.

The Hubble's ACS is not repaired; they made the decision that it would not harm the rest of the instrument by activating the backup electronic controller (Side 2).

Historically speaking this marks the half-life time of the mission. It has operated for four years; I expect it to work 3 to 5 more years now.

I don't know if the controllers (Sides 1 and 2) are identical; it wasn't for the STIS and they need to run a series of re-calibration before resuming its science operations. I hope that isn't the case here. I'm supposed to use that camera this month and next.